1.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time

2.
Washington County, Utah
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Washington County is a county located in the U. S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 census, the population was 138,115 and its county seat and largest city is St. George. The county was created in 1852 and organized in 1856 and it was named for the first President of the United States, George Washington. Washington County experienced the fifth highest job-growth rate in the United States at one point, Washington County comprises the St. George, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area. The earliest settlement was Fort Harmony in 1852, Santa Clara was established in 1854 as a mission to the natives that lived on the Santa Clara River. Hamblin and Pinto were settled along the Los Angeles - Salt Lake Road in 1856, next came the settlements established as colonies to grow cotton, before the beginning of the American Civil War. They were located along the Virgin River, in the warmer climate below the Great Basin, the first were Virgin and Washington in 1857. Heberville, Pintura and Toquerville followed in 1858, Grafton, Harrisburg, adventure in 1860, and Duncans Retreat, Northrop, Shonesburg and St. George in 1861. Shoal Creek later called Hebron, was a community established in 1862 in the west of the county. Leeds was settled in 1867, and Silver Reef was a mining town begun in 1875 and abandoned by 1891 due to the collapse in silver prices. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 2,430 square miles. The elevation varies from 2,178 to 10,365 feet in elevation, the lowest point in the state of Utah is located in the Beaver Dam Wash in Washington County, where it flows out of Utah and into Arizona. Washington County is made up of three geographic areas, the Colorado Plateau in the east-northeast, the Great Basin in the northwest. Most of the population is centered in the middle-south of the county near the border with Arizona, most national shopping, dining, and hospitality chains are located here, along with several local businesses. The climate of this section of the county is the driest, the terrain is also among the lowest in Washington County, making for a particularly hot and dry climate when compared to the rest of the county. Most homes are located in subdivisions, and a large urban sprawl exists. In Downtown St. George, several restaurants and stores call this area home. To combat the sprawl, growth and promotion is being projected inward to the area of the St. George

3.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean

4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

5.
Cedar City, Utah
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Cedar City is a city in Iron County, Utah, United States,250 miles south of Salt Lake City, and 180 miles north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. It is the home of Southern Utah University, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Games, the Neil Simon Theatre Festival, as of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 28,857. Ancestors of the present-day southern Paiute Indians met the Dominguez–Escalante Expedition in this area in 1776, fifty years later, in 1826, mountain man and fur trader Jedediah Smith traveled through the area exploring a route from Utah to California. Cedar City was originally settled in late 1851 by Mormon pioneers originating from Parowan, Utah, who were sent to build an iron works. The site, known as Fort Cedar or Cedar City, was equidistant from vast iron deposits 10 miles west and coal resources 10 miles up Cedar Canyon, but was named after the abundant local trees. Two companies of men led by Henry Lunt reached the site in a blizzard on November 11,1851. In 1855, a new site, closer to the works and out of the flood plain of Coal Creek, was established at the suggestion of Brigham Young. Cedar City was incorporated on February 18,1868, the iron works closed in 1858, though iron mining continued in the area until the 1980s. Cedar City continues to be a center of tourism, commercial development, education, the city has shared in the rapid growth of much of Southwestern Utah since the late 1980s. Cedar City is located in the southeast Great Basin, and is about 20 miles north of the edge of the Mojave Desert. Its elevation of 5,840 feet gives it a cooler and less arid climate vis-à-vis nearby Dixie, Cedar City is located at 37°4057 North, 113°428 West. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 20.1 square miles. The city is located on the edge of the Markagunt Plateau, in a high desert valley, Cedar Valley. The climate is the typical cool semi-arid climate of the Mountain West, though snowfall can be quite heavy, Interstate 15 connects the city with St. George and Las Vegas to the south, and to Interstate 70 and Salt Lake City to the north. State roads connect Cedar City with Panaca, Nevada near US93, Kanab, Utah via US-89, similar to St. George, the city enjoys an excellent location on the wests regional transportation network. Los Angeles is 439 miles south and San Diego is 500 miles south on Interstate 15, Phoenix is 465 miles south via Interstate 15 and US-93, a branch line of the Union Pacific Railroad serves customers on the western outskits of the city. The branch connects to the main line at Lund. Cedar City Regional Airport offers flights via Delta Connection, as of the census of 2000, there were 20,527 people,6,486 households, and 4,682 families residing in the city

6.
Bureau of Land Management
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President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies, the General Land Office and the Grazing Service. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The mission of the BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, originally BLM holdings were described as land nobody wanted because homesteaders had passed them by. All the same, ranchers hold nearly 18,000 permits, the agency manages 221 wilderness areas,23 national monuments and some 636 other protected areas as part of the National Landscape Conservation System totaling about 30 million acres. There are more than 63,000 oil and gas wells on BLM public lands, total energy leases generated approximately $5.4 billion in 2013, an amount divided among the Treasury, the states, and Native American groups. The BLMs roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and these laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the federal government after the American Revolution. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain, France and other countries, the United States Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, during the Revolutionary War, military bounty land was promised to soldiers who fought for the colonies. After the war, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, signed by the United States, England, France, in the 1780s, other states relinquished their own claims to land in modern-day Ohio. By this time, the United States needed revenue to function, Land was sold so that the government would have money to survive. In order to sell the land, surveys needed to be conducted, the Land Ordinance of 1785 instructed a geographer to oversee this work as undertaken by a group of surveyors. The first years of surveying were completed by trial and error, once the territory of Ohio had been surveyed, in 1812, Congress established the General Land Office as part of the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these federal lands. By the early 1800s, promised bounty land claims were finally fulfilled, over the years, other bounty land and homestead laws were enacted to dispose of federal land. Several different types of patents existed and these include cash entry, credit, homestead, Indian, military warrants, mineral certificates, private land claims, railroads, state selections, swamps, town sites, and town lots. A system of land offices spread throughout the territories, patenting land that was surveyed via the corresponding Office of the Surveyor General of a particular territory. This pattern gradually spread across the entire United States, the laws that spurred this system with the exception of the General Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 have since been repealed or superseded. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities, such as coal, oil, gas, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 established the United States Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands by establishment of advisory boards that set grazing fees. The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937, commonly referred as the O&C Act, in 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior. It took several years for new agency to integrate and reorganize

7.
Zion National Park
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Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft at Coalpits Wash, located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the parks unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds,75 mammals, and 32 reptiles inhabit the parks four life zones, desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans, the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi stem from one of these groups. In turn, the Virgin Anasazi culture developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities, a different group, the Parowan Fremont, lived in the area as well. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits, Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909 the President of the United States, William Howard Taft, named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. In 1918, however, the director of the newly created National Park Service changed the parks name to Zion. According to historian Hal Rothman, The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time, many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience, the United States Congress established the monument as a National Park on November 19,1919. The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, the geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet starting 13 million years ago, the park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, the northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15, exit 40. The 8, 726-foot summit of Horse Ranch Mountain is the highest point in the park, streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks. The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through Zion Canyon in the park, the road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles long, ending at the Temple of Sinawava. At the Temple the canyon narrows and a foot-trail continues to the mouth of the Zion Narrows, the Zion Canyon road is served by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by private vehicles the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles year-round, the east side of the park is served by Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel

8.
Virgin River
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The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U. S. states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The river is about 162 miles long and it was designated Utahs first wild and scenic river in 2009, during the centennial celebration of Zion National Park. The river is named for Thomas Virgin, a member of the first American party to see it, Smith named it Adams River, after then-president John Quincy Adams, but later explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont gave it its current name, after the Smith party successfully descended the river on the way to California, Thomas Virgin was badly wounded in an attack by Mohave people during the crossing of the Mojave Desert. Virgin recovered from his wounds but was killed, along with most of Smiths companions. The Old Spanish Trail followed the Virgin River for part of its length from near St. George to the point it ascended the Mormon Plateau to cross to the Muddy River in present-day Nevada. The river flows in a direction, passing south of the old townsite of St. George where the Santa Clara River joins the Virgin at a place the Paiutes called Tonaquint. The river then flows across the corner of Arizona through the Virgin River Gorge and past the towns of Beaver Dam. It enters southern Nevada near the town of Mesquite and empties into the Colorado at the Lake Mead reservoir, the last 30 miles of the Virgin River forms the north arm of Lake Mead. Despite flowing through a region, the Virgin River is home to a surprisingly diverse array of plants. Southwestern Utah is located at the intersection of three regions, the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The exceptional landscapes and habitats of this region harbor unique plant, without the water of the Virgin River system, these species could not exist. Many of these species are endangered or are considered sensitive species within the State of Utah, the Virgin River Program was established to balance increasing human demand and maintain this unique system. Woundfin Federally listed endangered species Size, 4″ One of the rarest species on earth, woundfin have large fins and scale-less, streamlined bodies that help them survive in swift, silty conditions. Although small, it is shark-like in both appearance and action as it feeds on insects in shallow areas along the river. Woundfin live only one to two years and their survival depends upon sufficient flow within the river, especially during hot summer months, Virgin River chub Federally listed endangered species Size,18 ” Rare and beautiful, this fish is the top native predator in the Virgin River. Chub are a fast streamlined fish with a forehead, humped back. The Virgin River chub feeds on fish, insects

9.
Arches National Park
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Arches National Park is a US National Park in eastern Utah. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River,4 miles north of Moab and it is home to over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. It contains the highest density of natural arches in the world, the park consists of 76,679 acres of high desert located in the Colorado Plateau. Its highest elevation is 5,653 feet at Elephant Butte, forty-three arches are known to have collapsed since 1977. The park receives on average 10 inches of rain a year, administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a National Monument on April 12,1929. It was redesignated as a National Park on November 12,1971, over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited, an additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone, was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet of sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale, the arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation. The weight of this caused the salt bed below it to liquefy. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual salt anticlines or linear regions of uplift, faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge, the result of one such 2, 500-foot displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center. As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form. These are visible in layer cake fashion throughout most of the park, over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits, winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained, wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Others, with the degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections

10.
Bryce Canyon National Park
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Bryce Canyon National Park /ˈbraɪs/ is a National Park located in southwestern Utah in the United States. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors, Bryce sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet, the Bryce Canyon area was settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1850s and was named after Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area in 1874. The area around Bryce Canyon became a National Monument in 1923 and was designated as a National Park in 1928, the park covers 35,835 acres and receives substantially fewer visitors than Zion National Park or Grand Canyon National Park, largely due to Bryces more remote location. In 2016, Bryce Canyon received 2,365,110 recreational visitors, Bryce Canyon National Park is located in southwestern Utah about 50 miles northeast of and 1,000 feet higher than Zion National Park. The weather in Bryce Canyon is therefore cooler, and the park receives more precipitation, yearly temperatures vary from an average minimum of 9 °F in January to an average maximum of 83 °F in July, but extreme temperatures can range from −30 to 97 °F. The record high temperature in the park was 98 °F on July 14,2002, the record low temperature was −28 °F on December 10,1972. The national park lies within the Colorado Plateau geographic province of North America, Park visitors arrive from the plateau part of the park and look over the plateaus edge toward a valley containing the fault and the Paria River just beyond it. The edge of the Kaiparowits Plateau bounds the opposite side of the valley, Bryce Canyon was not formed from erosion initiated from a central stream, meaning it technically is not a canyon. Instead headward erosion has excavated large amphitheater-shaped features in the Cenozoic-aged rocks of the Paunsaugunt Plateau and this erosion exposed delicate and colorful pinnacles called hoodoos that are up to 200 feet high. A series of amphitheaters extends more than 20 miles north-to-south within the park, the largest is Bryce Amphitheater, which is 12 miles long,3 miles wide and 800 feet deep. A nearby example of amphitheaters with hoodoos in the formation but at a higher elevation, is in Cedar Breaks National Monument. Rainbow Point, the highest part of the park at 9,105 feet, is at the end of the 18-mile scenic drive, from there, Aquarius Plateau, Bryce Amphitheater, the Henry Mountains, the Vermilion Cliffs and the White Cliffs can be seen. Yellow Creek, where it exits the park in the north-east section, is the lowest part of the park at 6,620 feet, little is known about early human habitation in the Bryce Canyon area. Archaeological surveys of Bryce Canyon National Park and the Paunsaugunt Plateau show that people have been in the area for at least 10,000 years, basketmaker Anasazi artifacts several thousand years old have been found south of the park. Other artifacts from the Pueblo-period Anasazi and the Fremont culture have also been found, the Paiute Indians moved into the surrounding valleys and plateaus in the area around the same time that the other cultures left. These Native Americans hunted and gathered for most of their food, the Paiute in the area developed a mythology surrounding the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon

11.
Canyonlands National Park
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Canyonlands National Park is a U. S. National Park located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. It preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, legislation creating the park was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 12,1964. The park is divided into four districts, the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, while these areas share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character. Author Edward Abbey, a frequent visitor, described the Canyonlands as the most weird, wonderful, Canyonlands is a popular recreational destination. Since 2007, more than 400,000 people have visited the park each year with a record of 776,218 visitors in 2016, the geography of the park is well suited to a number of different recreational uses. Hikers, mountain bikers, backpackers, and four-wheelers all enjoy traveling the rugged, the White Rim Road traverses the White Rim Sandstone level of the park between the rivers and the Island in the Sky. Since 2015, day-use permits must be obtained before travelling on the White Rim Road due to the popularity of driving and bicycling along it. The park services intent is to provide a wilderness experience for all visitors while minimizing impacts on the natural surroundings. Rafters and kayakers float the calm stretches of the Green River, below the Confluence, Cataract Canyon contains powerful whitewater rapids, similar to those found in the Grand Canyon. However, since there is no large impoundment on the Colorado River above Canyonlands National Park, river flow through the Confluence is determined by snowmelt, not management. As a result, and in combination with Cataract Canyons unique graben geology, as of 2016, the Island in the Sky district, with its proximity to the Moab, Utah area, attracts 76.7 percent of total park visitors. The Needles district is the second most visited, drawing 20.7 percent of visitors, the remote Maze district accounts for only about 1.5 percent of visitors, while river rafters and other river users account for the remaining 1.1 percent of total park visitation. Political compromise at the time of the parks creation limited the area to an arbitrary portion of the Canyonlands basin. Conservationists hope to complete the park by bringing the boundaries up to the high sandstone rims that form the border of the Canyonlands landscape. The Colorado River and Green River combine within the park dividing it into three districts called the Island in the Sky, the Needles and the Maze, the Colorado River flows through Cataract Canyon below its confluence with the Green River. The area was home of the Ancestral Puebloans, of which many traces can be found. Although the items and tools used have been largely taken away by looters, some of their stone. The Ancestral Puebloans also left traces in the form of petroglyphs, the Maze district is located west of the Colorado and Green rivers, and is the least accessible section of the park, and one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the United States

12.
Capitol Reef National Park
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Capitol Reef National Park is a United States National Park, in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles long on its north–south axis, the park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres of desert landscape and is open all year with May through September being the highest visitation months. Located partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named Wayne Wonderland in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol, easy road access only came in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon. The majority of the nearly 100 mi long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park, Capitol Reef is the name of an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The local word reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earths crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America, in this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock, the park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth. The fold forms a barrier that even today has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel, impassable ridges as reefs, from which the park gets the half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962, today, State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape. The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, the Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert country. A scenic drive shows park visitors some of the highlights, hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead the more adventurous into the equally scenic backcountry. Fremont culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of lentils, maize, and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries, in the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned, many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of people or moki. In 1872 Alan H. Thompson, an attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powells expedition. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the areas geology, none of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent, however